Operation Steel Strikers
by wsmffc
Summary: A prequel assault on Gray Mann's fortress. Does not fit entirely with canon.


**Operation Steel Strikers**

"Alright, ya bettah spit it out fast engie, I'm about to die from blood loss," Scout shot out along with a bloody tooth. "And make fast too, 'cus we don't got all day."

"Scout, I ahsure yah this'll be worth yah time. Inh fact, we do this right, we'll have the time we need. Now no interruptions now, y'all, 'cuz we dun got that time yet." That said, everyone listened intently as Engineer began his exposition. Medic went through, healing the day's damages, while everybody else began doing whatever as this happened, like Demo taking a few swigs from his bottle or Heavy digging into his supply of "sandwich" foods.

"As we 'll knaw the Machines 'av been attacking relentlessly: day after day; night after night; rain or shine. I say, we take the fight back ta 'em. Now, before y'all start raising yah voices and whatnot, pipe down and listen."

Engineer paused to begin playing a black-and-white film on the screen while muttering about how they still didn't colour TV despite having teleporters.

The reel showed the old ray gun on Point C, Gravel Pit. The mercs looked at it, but respectly kept quiet, wondering why Engineer was once again showing them this after they'd expended so much fighting each other over it in the past and, more recently, taking it back from the robotic hordes.

Dell quickly reaffirmed the obvious to them by explaining what exactly the gun was there for: shooting robots.

"As yah 'll knaw, since the Machines came I've been working extra hard. If yah'll lookiee here, y'all will see Exhibit A. I've refurbished this here Laser. Now, it would be useless on its own except maybe for shootin' down the odd plane or spacecraft that would happen its way through. Howevah, I also took the liberty of launching several orbital dishes. Refah to Exhibit B."

It showed several floating structures in space that the Engineer had put it.

"With this, we can use the Laser to target the Machines."

Then, Scout at last interrupted, with an obvious question but nonetheless excited tone of voice, "Well okay then why don't we just shoot da bots with that there huge frickin' lasah then?"

"Ah, Scout, I'm glad you asked." Engineer paused to click the remote controlling the slideshow once again. "Exhibit C, right here. Though I tried to keep this secret, goin' so far as to hide it from y'all, not that I don't trust every one of ya, but just for safety's sake, I still wasn't able to keep it from Gray Mann. One clever mother hubbard, I don't know how but he knows."

Exhibit C detailed three small inconspicuous, boxy black buildings.

"While this may not look like much I have determined these to shield generators with a 94% degree of accuracy with Analytic Engine. This means we will have to be getting in close to disable them. While we"re at it we might as place a few computational beacons. For more precise targeting."

Everyone else had their enthusiasm a little dulled but they still figured it would be simple.

"Well, this sound easy. But what is catch, Engineer?" Heavy asked slowly.

"Now it may seem like a no brainer, but, sadly, to power such a magnificent machine if mass destruction... We need divert power from elsewhere. We used to have this power just fine but since then we have lost much to the Machines... well, we'll have to disable Respawn."

Everyone was really dampened enthusiasm wise after that.

Soldier spoke up then with his reassuring banter, yelling that "If it is what it takes for us to beat the Gray Menace once and for all, then we will do it once and for all! For America! All of us may not come back, but men, this is War! So Mann Up!"

And with that, everyone reassuring piled their hands together, shot them out, and prepared.

"Da!"

"Awright then, mate."

"Let's do this."

"Ah huh."

"Ja."

"Wot? Ah'm drunk."

"Very well. Proceed."

With everyone's approval, Engineer began the specifics of Operation _Steel Striker._

Little did they know that, the entire time, Gray Mann had been watching. As he directed the small circular hovering spy camera to leave, a wicked smile spread over his wrinkled face. With them out in the open like this, it could be the way to kill them once and for all.

* * *

The plan had been decided upon as so:

Demoman, Sniper, Soldier, and Pyro would stay back and defend the Gun against possible robotic incursions.

Engineer, Heavy, Medic, Scout, and Spy would assault Gray Mann's fortress.

Defense team, dressed in RED uniforms, would have a defense-in-depth system with fields of mines, primitive dumbfire sentries which would shoot everything in a 180 degree arc, remote control guns with simple wiring, stragetic fire points covering crucial intersections, a highly mobile teleportation system, and various other force multipliers.

Attack team, donning blue, would be taking a large mobile command center, which they had named _Hotrod_ after its flaming stripes of orange and a firey blue emblazoned on the sides of the After Nine paint job. They would take Engineer's suspect dimensional accelerator to slingshot them near Gray Mann's headquarters. As an added plus, if they managed to survive the trip, the exit force would generate an impossibly powerful electromagnetic pulse, wiping out a fair amount of resistance. Then they would smash their path through whatever was left in a semi coordinated manner and kill the bastard before he would have a chance to react.

Before they left, all the mercenaries gathered around to hear Soldier's farewells in the underground garage.

"Men, we may not have always been on the same side. And we may have all maybe even hated each other once. But now if there is one thing enemy we are currently fighting helps about is that they have brought us together. And I if none of you come back... well, hell, if I don't, I want you all to know out of all the other battles I fought... None can ever surpass any of those I've shared with you magnificent bastards. Godspeed." He saluted them all.

Engineer called for everyone to board.

RED climbed up into the _Hotrod_, and various waypoints, nine in all, slowly lit up, directed themselves toward and concentrated on the gargantuan machine, and sent it away in a bright flash of light.

* * *

Now on their way, Spy was beginning to doubt his decision to go along with the plan. Outside was a deep purple sea of countless wispy white apparitions... taking various manifestations, with their what was likely their mouths twisted in sinister looking Os. And, most disconcertingly, the longer he looked, the more numerous, terrifying, and diverse the forms became.

Something tapped him on his shoulder and he freaked, dropping his ambassador and accidentally discharging a round into his foot.

"Mon dieu! What's-" he said as he turned to Medic.

"Ooh! Sorry there Spy," Medic apologized before turning to the infiltrator's wound and patching it up when he suddenly dropping his medigun in surprise as something slammed into the ship. Then whatever had made the noise suddenly _burnt_ a hole inside.

It turned out to be a mostly formless mass of sort that had the distinct feature of being mostly _mouth__! _Pure, malevolent looking forms began to pour in out, oozing viscously out of the creature like molasses dripping from a jar.

Spy was really beginning to doubt this plan now.

* * *

"Care if I join you?" Soldier asked tentatively to the Demoman, who was drinking while forebodingly gazing out into the horizon from his position on a saloon top.

"Huh? Wot? Ahgag... Sure," Demo slurred with a slight smile showing his start of inebriation. "Want some?"

Soldier, never one to refuse a stiff drink, accepted, climbed up, and began catching up to the Demo. For a while there was an uncomfortable silence before Soldier decided to break it.

"Demoman... I know this may seem sudden or forced, but with the battle coming and the fact that we may not..." His voice trailed off. "I just want you to know that I never did mean anything I said or did. I know that we'd never got over any of it despite all the men joining together... But, I just want you to know that, in my book, you're clean."

"Especially compared to that backstabbing Frenchie or the crazy doctor.

After Soldier awkwardly stammered that out Demo cheerily spoke up.

"Soldier, ah'd nevah cared for or believed what any of them ever said. But ah knew it would be pointless otherwise, and there was lots of high powered weapons to be had. Surely you'd understand, yah? You were always still my friend."

There was a show of understanding in the Soldier, though he hadn't said it. They kept drinking now in a respectful silence now of two old friends putting something trivial behind them after a realization.

Sniper yelled to everybody the presence of incoming Machine formations from his vantage point in the town's tower, breaking the moment.

Soldier got up and helped the Scotsman up. They prepared their weapons, jumped down to meet the Pyro.

"Oh and Soldier? I still got those two tickets to the gun show."

Soldier smiled.

"Then let's give these sissy tin heads the show _to die for._"

A large cloud of dust was rolling in the distance, full of machines. They ran out to meet it, head on.

* * *

Those things that poured into the ship lunged for Spy, who intercepted the nearest one with a knife before it could touch him. It disappeared in a haze of purple. Medic had pulled out his Ubersaw and thwacked another that approached. "We need to get back," Medic yelled. "Bounds ahead of you," the Spy said, rapidly withdrawing back to the closest gun station.

The rest of the team was immediately informed of where they were needed by the Engineer's urgent alerts from the cameras. Heavy and Scout, whooping loudly, jumped down, guns a blazing. Engineer was quick to follow.

Everyone poured fire into the gap in the ship, killing whatever horrors that came. The Engineer placed down the Sentry he was carrying as well as deploying a Dispenser. With a roar, the thing began to withdraw from the extra fire poured down from it all.

A final expulsion from it and a swarm of red beasts came this time. The Sentry began shooting but then went haywire and exploded. Why?

The beasts were... Warping around. They looked hazy and all fuzzy like, and then they were all gone. And with that, the hole burned closed itself. But the creatures were not gone.

Suddenly one jumped out, and clawed upon Heavy's face. "AGGGH!" he shouted while swinging the thing off and caving its skull in with a resounding fisticuff.

"Spread out and find 'em, y'all! There's still more.".

* * *

The assault on the Gravel Pit began. Soldier, Demo, and Pyro confidently strode up neck deep in robots, firing missiles, pills, and flaming them respectively. Sniper marked targets for death with his Sleeper and reported enemy bot formations. Wave after wave came, with no end in sight. Slowly but surely the position's landmines, crude sentries, and traps were depleted. Robots climbed over their destroyed ally's bodies heedlessly.

Soldier was busy holding the head of a robot Heavy still as Pyro cut into it with his axe and finished it with his scorch shot, knocking it back into a trash heap of dead bots. Then Sniper yelled to them that the Bots had managed to encircle them and would soon be coming in from all sides. "Pyro, get over here and protect me if you can!"

So the Machines came in from all sides, Soldier and Demo facing back to back.

Soldier shot down the closest group of Assault Rifle and Shotgun Heavies with his Rocket Launcher before switching to his Shotgun to finish those that got close. Demo did similar, switching at will from his Grenades and air Stickies and slashing with the Eyelander anything that got too close.

As they did this, they slowly turned, so they were circling around in some strange dance wheel, killing all robots that lay outside it.

"Heads up! We got a wave of bomb carrying Scouts approaching!"

"Thanks, Snipes!"

"No worries mates!"

The Scouts came in fast, and they could not risk setting off their explosives with their own. Soldier unloaded his Shotgun, taking down 7 of the 20. He then swung out, bashing the nearest one down with the gun's stock. Demo charged and took down 2 more with his shield impact. Half of them were down, but half had made it. They began trying to activate their built in bombs. Demoman dragged the Soldier behind him as he was currently punching and kicking one of them.

The explosions came, but Demoman's Targe absorbed the lot of it. He offered Soldier a hand, and he took it.

"Well now, no time to celebrate maggot. There's a battle to be had."

Demoman smiled, and Sniper's voice came up over the din of continually assaulting machines. "Draw back to Position 2. If we don't leave right now, we'll be entrapped and overwhelmed by crushing force. We got a huge Heavy and some Gun Platforms coming in."

Soldier growled. Engineer and his crew better really be going. At this rate they wouldn't last for much longer.

* * *

After the attack team had successfully smoked out the devils, the ship was poised to arrive. It shot out from whatever hell they had just been in in a bright flash of light marked by a brighter wavelength that spread across the distance. They were right on the doorsteps of Gray Gravel Co.

The entrance to Gray Mann's fortress was located on a secluded end of a peninsula, with menacing defenses all over it. Three small artificial islands surrounded the only land path, covering all angles in a 180 degrees arc of likely approaches. Past those guns, there was a humongous blast door covered with laser shielding blocking the way. However, in a typical stupid machine fashion, all this was slaved to a vulnerable command machine lying right in the open of the courtyard between the door and the slope up to the next heavily guarded mini-fort. Spy would sap and turn it for the team's own purposes.

After that was taken, the deadliest part of the assault would come: the bridge up to the island where the fortress itself was on. Engineer had not been able to discern much about it, though Soldier's reports were that "it was like A DANGEROUS THING. DANGER. (BEEP BOOP)."

So they exited, and went foward. There was little resistance as the EMP had fired most of the machines, leaving nothing but useless instant junkyards. The guns still fired since Gray Mann had opted to install hardened systems or they operated on vacuum tube technology.

The _Hotrod_ shrugged off all the blows that came. Inside the ship, Spy prepared.

* * *

"Ya ready?"  
"Yes 'pardner'. Do it now, or never, as it is said."

Spy was shot out of a cannon over the entrance. His foolproof disguise of paper allowed him to escape gunfire directed by immobile defenses. He made his way toward the computer.

Gray Mann watched this omniously. He swung around and got up from his swivel capable chair and slid open a garage. Then he turned to the waiting Robot army behind him.

"Welcome the latest addition to your ranks, my idiotic slave soldiers. With this, I have confidence that you shall destroy Mann Co. Now go."

"Yes! All hail Gray Mann!" the monotous voices came on as Gray Mann gave the order and typed the command to go on the computer in front of him.

The Mecha Engineer's unfeeling eyes analyzed and prepared for its first action.

* * *

Spy got to the machine and placed a sapper on it. He then plugged in one of Engineer's devices to start forcing its way into the computer. But the sapper released a particularly large ball of electricity, surged, and blackened before falling right off. On the screen of the machine, a twisted mechanical form of Engineer appeared.

"Prepare to be incinerated, flimsy organic units," it gloated. Suddenly, in the distance and close by, the characteristic clanking of marching robotic feet was heard. Platforms rose from around him, and popped their garage doors open, activating machines stored inside. They marched out, determined.

"What is... Mon dieu." Spy activated his wrist comm on his Invisi Watch. "Engineer! It has gone wrong-" He was cut off by the machine in front of him exploding.

"Spy! You okay? Dammit, dammit, dammit!"

Engineer pushed a button on the captain's control panel in front of him, and turned toward the rest of the team, which had seen it all. He picked out a shotgun from an overhead bin that jutted out.

"Alright boys, everything's gone haywire. We're gonna have to fight ourselves in, the old fashioned way."

The bay doors of the mobile fortress opened, and a payload went down the ramp, followed by four screaming mercenaries.

* * *

Back at Mann Co, hundreds of machine imitations continuing pounding the defense team. Position B was at the fences right before the entrance to Gravel Pit, on the dusty hills surrounding the mining installation.

There, Sniper sat on a purpose built tower, picking off approaching machines as fast as he could work the bolt. Pyro walked around, deflecting whatever missiles came back towards the enemies and occasionally heckling the enemy with flares or shotgun blasts. Whenever they got too close, he would set them ablaze. Soldier and Demo fired their projectile weapons and smashed anything that tried to take them on. This continued for a good 12 minutes or so. Then the Machines shifted their stragety.

"Sniper, why are they stopping! I want to continue ripping their heads off!"

"Hang on, mate! Can't get a clear line of sight. Give me a bit... Alright! It seems they're re-evaluating. They've spread their ranks out and moving some particular Robots to the front. They look like... Shields!"

"Wot? Dem cowards iz gonna hide behind _shields _now?!" Demo dropped his Chargin' Targe at the moment and moved to pick it out. "Ah told ya they were a bunch o' weak lasses!"

"Come here and fight like men! I will rip out your spine and use it to beat you until the oil comes spurting out from _more holes than you know to have_!"

As if to answer their jeers, the Machine line surged foward. Soldier and Demo fired as much as they could, but the Shield bots would jump in the way every time with precision only robots could have.

"Aim for their feet, mates!"

They began adjusting their aim, and Pyro braced for them coming in close. Then they ducked behind cover as a rain of bullets came down upon them. The machines had closed ranks now that they were close enough and sped up, preparing to jump Mann Co's trenches and wooden parapets.

Unsettling electronic mimicry of their voices began to sound off.

"**You cowards will run if you know what's good for you**!"

"**Every single one of you is going to be shipped home to your momma in a box!"**

"**They're going to bury wot's left of ya in a SOUP CAN!**"

The machines surged over the barrier and the defenders opened fire again. Soldier took down twenty of them with each hit, but they kept coming. Demo detonated numerous sticky traps and the mine fields he had lain claimed many a machine. Pyro burned all that got close, but it was too much. They began to pour in right next to them as a gap was opened.

Soldier bashed himself in the head with his shovel to get the blood flowing and jumped into the brawl. Demo pulled out his sword and cut the nearest machine's sensor suite off, oil spraying all over him.

The bots, being mostly Soldiers, had no close range weapons but attempted to strangle Soldier with their steel hands. Shovel bashed each prying grip that tried to grasp onto its owner. Demo sliced, chopped, slashed, and hacked whatever came close. Pyro supported, staying a safe distance off and occasionally wading in with an axe when it became too much or blasting them back. They were slowing losing, however. Sniper, who poured fire down from a close range machine gun in his nest, noticed that Soldier's blows were no longer connected how he wanted them to and more and more bots were landing hits on the Demo.

So he let loose a jarate rain by pulling a rope hanging nearby, dumping a large container. The minicrits got them through several hundred machines, destroying them all.

"Ahhhff! Huddha! Hoof hack!"

"The Pyro's right, men. I know a downhill battle when I see one."

The next wave approached fast, ready to renew the assault.

"Well, we don't have much time! Withdraw to Position C." So Sniper jumped down from the top of his tower on the shack, and the other three defenders entered the shack which they had Re-spawned in so often.

Position C was the base itself.

* * *

The attackers charged foward, Scout first. He removed the head of the first machine he saw with a clean connection on his Bat. The rest of the machines turned to pulverize him but gunfire from Heavy began mowing them down, who Scout quickly ran back behind. They then prioritized the giant man cutting their force to pieces.

Engineer followed close behind, riding the payload and letting shoulder mounted mini sentries pick off machines while he directed the bomb. Scout started shooting with his Scattergun.

The machines suddenly stopped pouring through the man-sized "doggy doors" on the sides of the blast door. It went strangely quiet, before a small humming presented itself.

The door exploded with a boom, and Spy appeared, covered in blood.

"Ze spy!" "He live!" "You're okay man!" "I knew that that mother hubbard couldn't be gone!"

"No waste to waste though boys, we GOTTA GO FAST!" With that, Engineer zapped himself back into the bridge of the _Hotrod_ with the Eureka Effect. More machine reinforcements were clanking their way over on the bridge as this happened.

Without a word, they nodded and continued moving foward. Spy cloaked and disappeared. Engineer directed the large mobile fort and it began to rumble foward as well.

The guns began to spin up, and the assault truly began.

Artillery and missiles onboard destroyed any particularly large looking robotic formations on the bridge and the mercs picked off any stragglers. This got them to the start of the bridge. But half-way through was a make shift robotic barricade set up by some Tanks and several Sniper Bots. Hundreds of machines were ahead of it, which the mercs easily disposed of. But there was a mobile shield generator of sorts guarding the station and the guns couldn't take it.

"Spy! Get over there and take it out!"

Spy responded with his actions. He de-cloaked disguised behind the barricade, jumped up onto the closest Tank, which had a heavy missile launcher bolted on, ripped out some wiring and placed Engineer's hijacking plug in.

The gun turned on its allies and busted them with a few shots. Spy escaped handily by riding the blast wave like a rocket jump.

The Mecha Engineer had been reviewing their tactics so far, and prepared another trap to spring. It left some token forces to distract them and they continued unimpeded through until they reached three fourths of their way through. It flicked a switch and gave a command.

To the attack team, it appeared that the Bots were conducting a fighting retreat to consolidate their forces on a more defensible position, the island. But then Engineer saw it first from his vantage point.

"IT'S A TRAP!"

"Thanks, Captain Obvious!"

The sign they were passing underneath, which screamed out GRAY GRAVEL CO, suddenly flipped and three hundreds of clinging Demoknight machines jumped down, swords a' swinging. Engineer started to give commands but was cut off as he noticed that the letters themselves had hidden something as well. As the _Hotrod_ passed below it, the Demoknights moved to attack the mercs on assault. And strange, fast Spies jumped unnaturally hard and fast onto the base. One of them landed haphazardedly on the glass and twisted its head in an a motion impossible for a human. Engineer shot at it instinctively and partially from terror but the glass absorbed the shot without even showing a scratch. They crawled fast, in a crab like motions. Spy Crabs.

"Calm down now Dell... it's obviously just a cheap parlor trick to scare you..."

Then they smashed against the pane, and ripped it open.

"COME ON! HANNNG!" Engineer yelled as he began taking blasts at point range at them.

* * *

Down below, Heavy struggled as the Demoknights came in close. He threw down his unwieldy gun and began swinging at them with his bare hands. Medic kept the beam trained on Heavy as if his life depended on it, which was probably so.

Scout skillfully dodged around, smashing bot heads in and recovering some health with Mad Milk whenever he could. Spy had even joined the fray and throw down his Sapper to announce his presence before goading them to attack and darting around while cutting machines down by loosening their heads from the wires attaching them to their bodies with his Butterfly Knife.

But no matter how good they all were, the Robots would occasionally land hits here and there on Spy and Scout, in increasing numbers. Medic would sometimes divert the Medigun to them to keep them from death, and Heavy suffered from it. Each time, his health would go down a bit before Medic could train the beam back on him and stabilise him. And it was getting dangerously low.

"Yo! Engie! Can we! Get some! Goddamn! Help here!" Scout said between batting in some bots.

Silence came in response. A single shot rang out and destroyed a hefty handful of 40 or so bots. With that help, they finished off them. They savored the small victory for a moment, but were a little worried over Engineer.

"Scout! Get up there and help the laborer!"

"Gotcha!"

* * *

Up in the control room, the struggle began as the Spy Crabs entered and snapped back up to human-like positions. Engineer intercepted the first Spy Crab of the three's knife and counter-swung with his Shotgun in one smooth motion. The Spy Crab dodged it equally as smoothly and second one lunged at him in perfect synchronization. He was caught slightly off guard to the fast flowing tempo of the combat but managed to reflexively lean back so it only cut him slightly on the cheek as well as dropping his Shotgun.

But another Spy was waiting behind him and prepared to execute a clean backstab by jumping down from the ceiling. Engineer twisted his body in a Soldier-esque manuevur and swung out with his Wrench, out of a habit he often did whenever he felt the malevolent holding of a sharp tool near his backside. He managed to knock the knife right out of the dastardly machine's cold, unfeeling hands and felt a moment of triumph before the machine responded by socking him in the gut with his other hand.

Now the others moved to exploit this but Engineer, desperate, head-butted the one who had just punched him. He felt vindicated that he had chosen his hard hat, partly out of nostaglia and partly safety, instead of the planned soft hats he could of taken. The Spy Bot in front of him seemed actually somewhat _surprised_, and he used the opporunity to bash its head against the nearest button on the console, which shot off a cannon and blew some machines fighting below away.

"Well, two birds with one stone."

He moved quickly, as there were two more Spies. Following the head bash, he smashed the Bot down with his Gunslinger fist before jumping off to the side, narrowly missing the second one's knife, which hit the steel of the console and clanged off, stabbing itself in the eye and decomissioning itself.

Despite the danger of the situation, Engineer could now help laughing as he confronted the last bot. He must of gotten sloppy, though, as it beckoned for him to come, its four fingers on its right hand moving all blocky together, motioning for Engineer to come. He charged overconfidently and the Spy knocked him off onto the ground.

It should over him, almost victorious, and seemed to half gloat. Its knife starting coming down to Engineer, in what seemed like eternity. But just as it was about to gut him, the Engineer heard an annoying sound but now one he would forever love.

"BOINK!" the Scout taunted as his Bat slammed right into the Spy. "There's a home run right there; it goes right outta the park." The Spy flew through the window and landed with a thud outside.

Scout offered Engineer a hand and he took it.

"Alright, engie, next time put a Sentry up here. And we need a dispensah here."

Engineer had never been so happy to hear the Bostonian's voice.

* * *

Back at Gravel Pit, the defenders were taking a ridiculous number of bots. They had set up in the area right outside the Spawn, and a Tank came crashing through, tearing it down short after. Its top mounted machine gun began spraying but Demo detonated his stickies, stopping the armor in its tracks. But the machine gun kept rattling, and they withdrew behind toward the exits into the base.

The bots simply decided that they needed to speed up their combat operations apparently, because then several large bomb bots came, wheeling foward and detonating their devices and collapsing it.

Machines climbed over the wreckage and dust and immediately began assaulting thereafter. Pyro blew the dust away with airblast and covered their slow retreat fighting backwards. This continued until they were back at Point C, where the Ray Gun itself was.

"Things are not looking good, mates! And it's only gonna get worse. Lookin' here on the minimap informs me that the Machines have finally made their way past the other fortified passes and will soon be approaching in _FULL NUMBERS. _We'll be outnumbered 1,000 to 1 IF WE'RE LUCKY and they'll be pouring in from all sides."

The others nodded grimly, used to the bad news coming in. The bots continued foward, and, to make matters worse, small things with sharp cutting tools joined their ranks. They came from the vents, the shafts, and everywhere, forcing the men to look all around. And Sniper was not safe on any tall formation.

"Goddamnit, they better hurry! We're on our last legs!"

* * *

On Gray Mann's island, the team had finally reached the end. In a last ditch effort by the Bots, tons upon tons worth of explosive strapped robots had simply attempted to blow them sky high but there was too much firepower to get close. Now there was nothing but Gray Mann's fortress.

The guns began to shoot it, and another payload was inched closer to help collapse the huge reinforced structure.

Inside, Gray Mann nodded to the Mecha Engineer and told it to watch how his master would do it.

Something from within busted it right open, and stormed out.

It was Gray Mann, in a giant machine form of himself flanked by two crude, massive Heavies.

"I never wanted to kill any of you personally," he said in a booming voice that came on through massive speakers from within. "But you stand in my way. You have forced my hand."

And with that, hundreds more machines came pouring out of the ruined structure, and two huge, crude self propelled turrets and attached guns began to speak for Gray Mann rather than the huge voicebox. The machines nearby were taken care of quite quickly and the mercs began to shoot on Gray Mann's guns. Gray Mann re-approiated the shield generators for the walker of himself for extra protection.

"Get over there and probably into the machine and gum up its works, Spah!"

"Yes!"

Angrily, like a mighty god, Gray Mann sallied over to the _Hotrod_ and tore it apart with the machine's rip roaring fists. He then jumped up onto the sky as he lost his last turret and slammed back into the ground, disorienting everyone. Spy unfortunately was trying to attach a fourth sapper but was killed in the process.

Heavy raged immensely, and with unusual seriousness Scout quickly ran over, picked up Spy's knife, and told Engineer to fire a last missile a shoulder mounted pad. Medic turned his beam away from Heavy to Scout with his word. On his signal, Engineer fired the missile and Medic ubered.

Scout flew far up into the air, caught himself in on Gray Mann's machine by stabbing right into it and sliding down to his neck, cutting as he went. With accelerated force, Scout tore open the machine and bashed its head's wiring with his bat. Heavy took note and began directing his hail storm onto it.

The head popped off with enough force and the machine came tumbling down. It began heating up and Engineer suggested that the all grab on as he activated the Eureka Effect.

* * *

Back at base, Sniper struggled as he knocked off and cut open a slicer bot and smashed it, its four legs scurrying to a stop. More jumped on, and he began to struggle. Soldier's blows now fell completely awkward and useless, and the Demo's sword had shattered. Pyro's suit was tearing apart and his oxygen tank was starting to leak.

But then, with a bright flash of light, the ray gun activated. Once the blinding light passed, it was over.

The machines all whirred to a stop. They all celebrated their lives.

* * *

A week later, the team, though now down one member, stood in the freezing snow. In the distance, a replica of the _Hotrod _came. Engineer muttered in a strange mix of fear and pride. His robotic counterpart reflected well on him. It opened up, and improved bots rained upon them. They began fighting.

Just then, a huge Soldier stomped in upon them and roared.

* * *

Yes, a prequel. Also lines not showing up etc damnit there are discrepanices with the canon.

sorry somewhat rushed

sniper supposed to be dead too but I forgot to put that in and too late now because in spuf contest


End file.
